


a daydream in a cup

by mooncrash



Series: sax and violence [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Ant Problems, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M, POV Second Person, Slice of Life, did i mention slice of life? because it is STRONK slice of life content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooncrash/pseuds/mooncrash
Summary: “Hey, you,” you greet, pushing out the empty chair across from yours with your foot. Mundy stifles a yawn as he crosses the kitchen and drops into the chair, stealing your mostly-full coffee and scowling at the sugar and cream, same as he does every morning, and it feels like the sun breaking through the clouds, same as it does every morning.You’re never going to get tired of this.
Relationships: Sniper (Team Fortress 2)/Reader, Sniper (Team Fortress 2)/You
Series: sax and violence [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879597
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	a daydream in a cup

**Author's Note:**

> Me, out of breath and slightly bloody for some reason: NOBODY CAN STOP ME! NOT EVEN MYSELF!  
> I personally think Sniper's given name is Richard, because then his full name (Richard "Dick" Mundy) becomes a funny play on Michael "Mick" Dundee, which is Crocodile Dundee's actual name in the movie. Just my onion™ though, and it only comes up once. Also, if you have a problem with talking about ant death, I suggest you skip this one.  
> The title? Song lyrics! Because of course it is. Go listen to "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie. It's cute.

What you wouldn’t give for your body to _not_ sound like an improv jazz band every time you get out of bed in the morning. At a particularly loud pop from your hip, you grimace and glance over at the sniper also in your bed, relieved when he doesn’t stir. Maybe you could sweettalk Medic into performing some unlicensed chiropractics on you later today. Your steps are a little off-balance as you shuffle into some pants, your mind still snuggled up in bed, and though you're loathe to leave the comfortable bubble of your bed and your lightly snoring boyfriend, your bladder has other demands. God, but he really is adorable, though. You’d had to very carefully weasel your way out of his hold, pausing every time he shifted and made a snuffling noise into the back of your neck. Fortunately, he sleeps like the dead when you’re around. You’re finally forced to tear your eyes away from Mundy, half-covered by the duvet, at the insistence of your bladder. To add insult to injury, your stomach gives off a menacing growl of its own. Great. Now you’re _definitely_ not getting back into bed after this. All the same, you're one to bet on hope when it isn’t even in the race, and so you purposely squint a little, trying to preserve the sleep, as you move across the hall and towards the bathroom.

Things seemed fine while you were peeing. No sign of anything unusual in that corner of the bathroom. When you go to wash your hands, however, the counter is covered in ants.

Your mind makes a funny little fizzing noise as you squint at their tiny ant-y bodies, feeling _very_ awake all of a sudden. Isn’t it funny? You kill people for a living, but you’ve been staring at these ants for a solid thirty seconds now and still haven’t thought of what to do about them. One scurrying perilously close to the toothbrush cup snaps you out of it. Goddamn, you forgot how they get in the driest parts of the year. This is too many to kill, and besides, you’re not up for potentially getting an ant on you at 8 in the morning. Mundy is currently still snoring into a pillow across the hall, so getting him up to deal with this would just be mean. Besides, today’s one of his “alarm off” days. Forget mean, that’s heartless. Whatever your solution, it’s not going to involve your boyfriend.

It’s starting to look _really_ impractical to just kill all these suckers, you muse as you flick one into the bowl of the sink and run the taps. You know you’ve got ant traps; you remember bringing a box with you when you first moved to Teufort. The question is where they’ve ended up in the year and a half it’s been since you got here.

Carefully sticking your head back into your room, you double-check that Sniper is still asleep—yep, out like a light still—before opening half your dresser drawers, looking in the back of the wardrobe, and finally remembering in a flash of utter clarity that the ant traps are in the bottom drawer of the nightstand, and sure enough, there they are. Always the last place you look, huh? You scan the back of the box, just in case. Other than the frankly ridiculous idea of using _all four ant traps in one tiny bathroom,_ it’s straightforward. With any luck, the bulk of them should be dead within a couple hours.

You spare one more glance at Mundy before you leave, and your heart does a happy little flip when you notice he’s commandeered your pillow, hugging it to his chest like he does with you. Aww. Adorable bastard.

* * *

All in all, the ants are out of sight, out of mind during the rest of your morning. The kitchen is mercifully insect-free, but luckily not Demo-free, and you trade pleasantries as you make coffee and cereal and he pours Baileys into his coffee. The comfortable silence that follows is ended by your wonderfully scruffy boyfriend entering the kitchen in a t-shirt and boxers and skipping any greetings or niceties: “Darlin’, what the hell’s on the counter?” You smile into the bottom of your cereal bowl before turning dramatically towards him and responding, “Well hello to you too, lovely Sniper of mine! Do you mean the ants or the ant traps?” You know half-awake Mundy like the back of your hand, so it’s easy to watch him process everything you just said in real time. He squints at you while parsing the “ants” bit, but sure enough, he eventually cycles back around to the “lovely Sniper of mine” part and his ears go a little red. Public compliments of all stripes still catch him a little off guard, but he rights himself and clears his throat. “Does that answer your question, beloved?” You smile cheerfully at him and feel your grin deepen as the blush does.

Demo, whose single eye has been moving back and forth like this is a tennis match, outright laughs into his coffee now. You shoot him a look that aims for a playful glare but clearly doesn’t land, because he just shakes his head and leaves the kitchen, still chuckling to himself. On his way out, he claps Sniper’s shoulder and says, “You’ve bitten off a bit more than you can chew, eh lad?” You can’t tell, but you think Mundy might’ve smiled at his socked feet at that.

As Demo makes his way out into the living room, you lean back in your chair and shoot a soft, genuine smile Mundy’s way. “Hey, you,” you greet, pushing out the empty chair across from yours with your foot. He stifles a yawn as he crosses the kitchen and drops into the chair, stealing your mostly-full coffee and scowling at the sugar and cream, same as he does every morning, and it feels like the sun breaking through the clouds, same as it does every morning. You’re never going to get tired of this.

“G’morning, angel. How’d ya sleep?” You hum, chasing the last piece of cereal with your spoon, and respond, “Pretty well. Very warm toes.” You don’t even need to look up to know that Mundy is squinting at you in chilly-toed annoyance, but you do anyway when he kicks your shin under the table. “Hey, ow! Bastard,” you huff in mock annoyance, not bothering to retaliate. He smiles his crooked smile and you watch as the nigh-perpetual furrow between his brows disappears. “They oughta bottle and sell whatever it is you got, darlin’,” he murmurs, reaching out to push a piece of your hair behind your ear. “‘s like the fountain of youth.” You hide a laugh and warm cheeks in the palm propping up your chin. Despite how fun it is to fluster him with flattery, you’re admittedly not the best with compliments, either.

“Had some ant problems, I see,” Sniper says in a non-accusatory tone, nodding his head in the general direction of the bathroom. Sighing, you tap your spoon against the side of the bowl absentmindedly and say, “Yeah, it’s just so dry out that they’ve got nowhere else to go. But alas, they must die.”

He snorts. “Die indoors or die outdoors. Them’s the breaks, huh?”

“Them’s the breaks.”

“Mmm.”

Regardless of his earlier griping, Mundy takes another sip of your coffee as he watches out the solitary window over the sink, his eyes eternally scanning the horizon. You make absolutely zero effort to hide how you’re staring.

“What?”

“Absolutely nothing. Anyway, how’d you sleep? Have an enjoyable night with my pillow there?”

“Oh, piss off.”

You cackle at your boyfriend’s scowl and grin as he tries his very best to stay grumpy with you, stealing back your coffee only to find that it’s mostly gone now. You tilt the mug towards him with an exasperated look and he just looks pointedly in the direction of the coffee machine, then smirks at you. Ah, _there’s_ the shithead part, awake at last. You reach across the table to flick his nose, and he leans forward agreeably so you can reach. “Aw, come on, that wasn’t satisfying at _all,”_ you half-heartedly complain. He just smiles at you. “Reap what you sow, angel-mine.”

“Oh, so I Pavlov-ed you into liking getting your nose flicked, that’s what you’re saying?”

“See, you’re makin’ it sound iffy, I’m just playin’ along.”

“Well, you’re sucking all the joy out of it. I’m gonna have to start poking your sides. There’s just nothing else for it, Dick Mundy.”

It’s almost comical, the way he jumps and clamps his elbows to protect his sides the second the words leave your mouth. You spare yourself a moment to snort at his new T-rex arms before taking both the coffee mug and cereal bowl to the sink. You’ve half a mind to protect _your_ sides now, but thanks to Scout’s tireless efforts the team has run through six bowls this month, and you know Mundy isn’t about to make that a seventh. Even so, you still squeak in surprise when you feel hands on your waist, relaxing when Mundy slides his arms around you and sits his head on top of yours. You take a moment to enjoy his warmth, the feel of his heartbeat echoing yours, the gentle tapping of his fingers on your stomach. Must resist urge to not be a bastard…

“What, you gonna help me or not?” you tease, flicking water in the general area of Above-Your-Head and laughing when there’s a squawk of annoyance above you. “Oh you… Demo’s right, I mighta got myself a bit of a larrikin here.” You turn around in his hold, dishes abandoned, and stand on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips, leaning to whisper in his ear, “I reckon you might be right.” You catch his eyes widen and the beginning of a “What-“ before you sneak your wet, soapy hands up the back of his t-shirt, screeching with laughter as he squirms out of your hold and across the kitchen, glaring. “You’re in for it now, ya goddamn bogan!”

“Joke’s on you bitch, I’ve got the sprayer!”

* * *

After cleaning up breakfast, then cleaning up the clean up mess from breakfast, you lean against the counter to check your watch and contemplate, for a glorious moment, the concept of going back to bed. Sniper, catching sight of the movement from where he’s sat at the table, looks at you expectantly. “I’ve got nothin’ doin, darlin’.”

You run a hand through your hair and shrug. “What can I say? Going up against a man of your calibre and skill this early in the morning has exhausted me,” you snipe, chuckling even as Mundy glowers at you. It’s hard to take him seriously right now, what with the wet handprints all over the torso of his shirt and his hair even more messy than when he woke up, and you don’t stop yourself from laughing even as he’s glaring. “Alright, haha, you’re real funny, ya know that?” he grouses, shepherding you back towards your room with a hand on your back. “What can I say, you got yourself a real jokester, beloved,” you say, walking past a nondescript door in the hallway before remembering, “Oh, wait! Let me just- “ You stick your head into the bathroom and smile at the mostly ant-free counter. Success.

**Author's Note:**

> Some Australian translations, if you found yourself in need:  
>  _ **Them's the breaks-**_ that's how it is  
>  _ **iffy-**_ sketchy, kinda suspicious  
>  _ **larrikin-**_ harmless prankster  
>  _ **bogan-**_ redneck or weirdo
> 
> I'm also over on Tumblr at [viticomae](https://viticomae.tumblr.com/)! Thank you! Xx


End file.
